MSU-Northern Wrestling
12-08-03
On Thursday, December 4th Northern
dueled Central Washington U. and Missouri Valley College. Central Washington did not win a match and
scored team points from the forfeit that Northern has had to give in the last 6
duals, the final score 36-6. Three of
their wrestlers are ranked and two are All-Americans.
The main event, Northern #3 against
Missouri Valley College the # ONE ranked team in the NAIA, before we left I
said on paper it was even with each team capable of winning five matches. It was an exciting dual from the start, again
Northern forfeited at 125 falling behind by 6 team points. Caleb Schaeffer wrestling Tarl Vickers fell
behind 5-1 but came back to with in 1 point 7-6 at the end of the first
period. He escaped in the second period
and got a takedown to go up 9-7, he then turned Tarl for the pin and tied the team
score at 6 points each. Missouri Valley
at the next two weights had their National Champion and National
Runner-up. We felt if we could create
one upset our chances would be very good in winning the dual as long as we did
not have an upset of ourselves. It was
not to be Chris Smith lost 15-8 to Tyson Biddle and Anthony Haukenberry lost
6-3 to Josh Pulsifer. With the team
score 12-6 for Missouri Valley, Northern was looking for a pin or a major from
Stryder Davis at 157, Stryder won 12-3 making the teams score 12-10 for
Missouri Valley. At 165 Aaron Jensen
did not wrestle at the potential that he is capable of and lost by a
major. David Waters at 174 lost to the
#3 ranked wrestler by a score of 8-4.
The team score now read 19-10 in favor of Missouri Valley and Northern
needed to win the last three matches to over take the Vikings. Kyle Fisher ranked #1 was wrestling the #2
rank Mario Thomas, Kyle won 9-2. Mazi
Burke defeated his opponent at 197 16-0 for 5 team points, making the team
score 18-19 for Missouri Valley with one match left and 2X National Champion
Emmett Willson against All-American Adam Nuru, as expected Emmett pinned Nuru
and Northern won the dual 24-19.
On Friday and Saturday, December 5th
& 6th Northern competed in the Las Vegas Invitational. There were 45 team entered, 30 NCAA Division
I teams, three NAIA teams, 8 NCAA D-II and 4 Junior Colleges. Northern only entered in 8 of the 10 weight
classes and did not perform as well as we had hoped (in the top ten but at
least in the top 15) at 17th place. A
half of a point more and we would have tied the U. of Wyoming and five more
points would have put us at number 14.
We did have two placers, Caleb Schaeffer at 133 lbs finished 8th and
Emmett Willson at 197 lbs finished first.
Emmett's finish is the first time a
NAIA wrestler has ever won the Las Vegas Invitational. Emmett went 5-0 and looked very
dominating. The crowd was at its
loudest during Emmett's match with wrestlers from Northwest College, Portland
State and fans from Northern and Montana cheering him on, approximately 70
people. He defeated Jason Bader of
Arizona State 4-2 in overtime for the gold.
Northern's next meet is Saturday,
December 13th at Northern against the #1 ranked Junior College, Northwest
College. Northwest defeated the
defending NJCAA Champions North Idaho College in a dual at Las Vegas, losing
only one match. Again on paper it looks
like it is even with each team winning five matches a piece. Northern will be moving Emmett Willson up to
heavyweight against the Defending NJCAA National Champion Tyler Rhodes. It will be an exciting evening of wrestling
in Havre at 7 pm. I keep you posted on
the results that evening.